. >> reporter: when a country like china dumps tires or other products on the u.s. market, it's pretty clear how to respond: raise tariffs and slap penalties on the producers. but how do you punish a chinese company that is suspected of receiving trade secrets through a government operation the government of china refuses to acknowledge? >> how you sanction a country with regards to cyber-espionage? i think we are still writing the book on that. it's a brand new area of exploration and i don't think policy makers really have the definitive word on how this will be accomplished. >> reporter: a new report says shanghai is home base for a massive chinese hacking effort that may involve thousands of people, but the u.s. and most other countries also employee secret armies of programmers engaged in some form of cyber- espionage. and that makes it harder to define a diplomatic solution to the problem. >> a lot of the most important military information in the world is on weapons systems that are developed by private corporations whether in this country or other countries